Teacher in the Pit (picture)

April 1947

South Yorkshire Times April 5, 1947

Teacher in the Pit

The case of Mr. Norman Shacklock (31), Conisbrough teacher, who lives at 37 Garden Lane, and is a ‘Bevin boy,’ working underground at Denaby Main Colliery, has come to light when every available qualified school teacher is needed to further the government’s educational aims.

Mr. Shacklock has always been a conscientious student and after obtaining his School Certificate and Higher School Certificate, he was 17 when he went to Borough Road, College, Isleworth.

He had completed his training and qualified as an assistant teacher when he was 19.

Unfortunately his first temporary teaching appointment at Bolton Modern School was not of the long duration and he went into the pit as an assistant in bricklaying underground.

Two more years?

His mother is the widow of Mr. Harry Shacklock, who was injured while working at Cadeby Cadeby Main Colliery, and died last Christmas.

She has five sons, and one of them, 19 years old Dennis, is following in his elder brother’s footsteps, and studying at Borough Road College, Isleworth where Norman qualified.

Mrs. Shacklock told a ‘South Yorkshire Times’ reporter that Norman was in 66 group, which meant that he might have to stay in the mines for another two years. He applied for release from the pit a month ago to the Ministry of Labour, but was refused it.

She said that considerable sacrifices had been made to educate the boys and commented, ‘My husband only worked on the pit top. You don’t sacrifice for lads to go down the pit.’ When it came to Dennis’s to register he would not go down the pit with her consent, and she would rather have him go into the Forces.